Real Life & Fantasy World

Its a much repeated idea that you can only write about what you know.

And some will say that you should only write about what you know, but for me that is far too limiting. In the strictest sense if we writers are to only write about. what we know about then the stories we tell would be limited to our own real lives.

And, if you interpret that more loosely, then you could say that you are merely writing about emotions, about how making responds to certain stimuli.

I may understand how a woman would react to unwanted attention or during the lasagna just as her dinner party is about to start, but how can I understand how a woman in space faced with a meteor that may hit half of her ship and kill her passengers or possibly could be out run by forcing the engines to maximum capacity which in turn could mean the whole ship blows up and kills everyone would feel?

There is no way.

I am in a forest at the moment in a lodge surrounded by birdsong and trees. And I went for an early morning walk which lead me to this entry.

You can take things from real life and put them in a story, and, even if that story is about dragons and wizards and orcs and hobbits it will ring true.

We understand why Frodo must take the ring and why he does not want to.

We understand why Tyrion kills his father and how his path leaf to that decisive moment.

As I wandered around the forrest I heard so much noise that it created a line in my mind,

A line that she will say to the man that will become the love of her life eventually.

"the land is never silent"

And already I an envisioning her walking with him through a forest that she knows well and had walked many times. A forest she loves.

Maybe it is the first inkling that we have that she can love anything.

Another story within the story can start off with a simple line.